Hospital Marks Its 10th Year

Joe Campbell remembers the first thing he heard after recovering from the first open-heart surgery ever performed at North Ridge General Hospital 10 years ago.

Doctors told him the equipment at the Oakland Park hospital passed all the tests.

They were kidding, of course. But in a very important way Campbell`s surgery was a test. The hospital had been open just one month when Campbell, a school teacher from Titusville, checked in for an operation to clear two blocked arteries in his heart.

The hospital contained only the second open-heart surgery unit in Broward County history. The first, at Florida Medical Center, had performed only 15 operations the year before.

Campbell, now 56 and retired, returned Sunday to help celebrate the hospital`s 10th anniversary.

``I would go through it again,`` he said, munching on a hot dog during a reception at the hospital. ``I don`t think I`d hesitate at all.``

Although open-heart surgery was not innovative 10 years ago, it was far less common that it is today. In North Ridge`s first year, there were only 152 operations in all of Broward County, according to the Broward Regional Health Planning Council. In 1984, there were 1,417 open-heart operations.

``The main change in cardiac surgery is that it is very commonly done in community hospitals now,`` said Dr. Robert Cline, Campbell`s heart surgeon.

Cline also was an original member of the North Ridge medical staff and formerly chief of surgery there.

``Ten years ago, it was mostly done only in teaching hospitals or medical centers,`` Cline said.

That change, according to Cline, has reduced the risk of death in heart surgery from about 10 percent 10 years ago to about 1 percent now. It also has upgraded the competition among local hospitals and, as a result, the quality of care, he said.

``The whole level of care throughout the hospital goes up,`` Cline said. There now are five open-heart surgery units in Broward: at Florida Medical Center, North Ridge, Broward General Medical Center, Memorial Hospital in Hollywood and Holy Cross Hospital.

Two other hospitals, Plantation General Hospital and North Broward Medical Center, have applied to the state for permission to open units, but both have been turned down.

Permission is based on numbers and geography. Each unit in Broward County must perform 200 operations each year after the third year they open. Then there must be at least 350 operations annually at each unit before new ones can be added.

According to John Werner, executive director of the Health Planning Council, only North Ridge, where there were 593 operations last year, has surpassed that standard.

``Everything is competitive,`` Werner said. ``You`re seeing a lot of changes in the health care area these days because hospitals are having to get into areas they haven`t been into before in order to keep going.``

Although most agree the competition generally is healthy, there is a risk that medical care based on volume alone can reduce quality, said Dr. Allan Wolpowitz, head of Memorial Hospital`s open-heart unit in Hollywood.

Wolpowitz estimated the average open heart surgery costs a patient $15,000 to $18,000.

That cost used to be perhaps $25,000, he said, before the federal government established guidelines for the length of time patients could stay in the hospital and still be reimbursed by Medicare.

Those restrictions also have led hospitals to push sometimes for a greater volume of patients, Wolpowitz said.

Three years ago, when Wolpowitz opened Memorial Hospital`s unit, 214 operations were performed. He expects over 300 this year and 800 over three years.

``We get all our referrals from private physicians,`` Wolpowitz said. ``But there is intense competition to attract certain health care plans that offer discount surgery. The problem is some people offering discounts sometimes are people who aren`t necessarily accepted as the best in the field.

``In other words, you sometimes get what you pay for.``

In Joe Campbell`s case, however, there are no objections.

``My father died of heart disease when he was 57. I`m 56 now and I consider that young. I just knew when I had to do something, and I`m glad I did.``